Artificial Intelligence and The Superorganism
The Great Simplification #71 with Daniel Schmachtenberger
This week…
Today, I am joined once again by Daniel Schmachtenberger to discuss a surprisingly overlooked risk to our global systems and planetary stability: Artificial Intelligence. The extent of the environmental/resource risks goes much farther than simply the energy and materials it takes to power the machines themselves. In this conversation, Daniel and I piece together a systems perspective of history that has led humans to this point, heading towards (and beyond) numerous planetary boundaries and facing geopolitical risks all with existential consequences. How does artificial intelligence not only add to these risks, but accelerate the entire dynamic that has created the metacrisis?
Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science.
What is the role of intelligence vs wisdom on our current global pathway, and can we change course? Does artificial intelligence have a role to play in creating a more stable system or will it be the tipping point that drives our current one out of control?
In case you missed it…
Building on the theme of my 2023 Earth Day Presentation, last Friday’s Frankly is a thought experiment of which ecological and systems concepts do not exist in the English language - but perhaps should. All of this is to say, the semantics and connotations of our language are extremely powerful and have direct impacts on the way we think and act. Could shaping our speech to be more accurate, empathetic, and comprehensive cause our aggregate actions to do the same?
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An essay I just published, in part inspired by this conversation, called Artificial Intelligence and Living Wisdom: https://tmfow.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-and-living
Nate, all your conversations with Daniel have intrigued me so thoroughly that I've started tracking down Daniel's writings and conversations with others. I discovered that he is somehow connected with Game B. Could you please have him back to tell your listeners about Game B?
Game B is attractive. I think it's supposed to be what Daniel calls The Third Attractor. The idea is to develop Proto-B commnunities that will eventually coalesce into a new Game B civilization that takes over from our present Game A, where Game B generally follows the precepts of simplification.
IMO, Game B is also dangerous, and it is unclear whether they have considered precedent. It could repeat the hippie communes of the '60s-'70s, almost all of which failed for a multitude of reasons. https://www.gamebfilm.org/ pre-advertises NFTs. An essay, A Journey To GameB, by James Rutt devotes space to crypto. The comments on the youtube video, An Initiation to Game B, by the Stoa, sound sort of cultish.
So I'm torn about looking deeper.